Grab the only cart in the store that has a wonky wheel which forces it to pull to the right all the time. Get whatever “in the aisle” goods I need. Turn right. Head down to the dairy aisle and pick up whatever I need there.

I sometimes spend more time gazing at cheese than you would expect from a person who knows how to work a button up shirt.

Take a detour through the potato chip aisle and just sit and meditate for a while. Wipe the goofy potato chip induced grin from my face and head on over to the produce aisle. As you may have guessed, I am forced to hang a right to do this. Pick up leafy, crispy things. I like leafy, crispy things.

Turn right at the broccoli and head directly towards the deli counter. Worry for a full 30 seconds about whether or not, when there is only 1 person ahead of me, I really need to “take a number”.

Decide the deli is too stressful and head over to the meat counter. Stand for what seems like hours deciding on what big, thick, hunk of meat I’d like to devour (usually after cooking it). I get all dreamy in the meat aisle. I browse and I scan and I ponder while in the meat aisle. Turn right.

Then I quickly zip through that area where they sell pies and cakes and stuff without looking at a thing. Check out.

The point of this story? Check the alignment of your cart before comitting to it. There’s nothing worse than a cart with a wonky wheel that always wants to turn right. Except one that wants to turn left. Second point to this story? I’m not one for sweet, gooey baked goods.

And because I don’t like to eat ’em, I don’t like to make ’em. Which is why I came up with this post. Quite possibly the easiest Heart Shaped Tart on the planet! Here we go …. !!!

Easy Cherry Tarts

It occurred to me that I could probably smash those little premade tart shells into any shape I wanted. I mean, nothing terribly complex. Like I probably couldn’t squish them into the shape of a small countryor a mathematical equation but I thought I could definitely squish it into the shape of a heart.

I gave it a shot, and turns out I was right. Very easy. Just get a tart … I used the mini kind normally reserved for appetizers.

Update: Apparently these mini shells are hard to find in The United States, whereas in Canada they’re in most frozen food sections. If you can’t find the mini tart shells, just use regular small tart shells.

How do you make a heart shaped tart?

1. Turn the shell into a heart shape, by denting in one end of the tart’s foil.

2. Then push that dent inwards to create the top of the heart shape.

Be careful not to squarsh the dough too much.

3. Once you have the top of the heart shaped, push the sides together a bit and pull the end down into a point. This will finish off the shape of the heart for your cherry tart.

Ta da! Heart shaped tart shell. Everybody needs to calm down now, because the most exciting part is coming up.

4. To fill the tarts, add 1 tablespoon of Cherry Pie Filling. I mean if you want to go nuts you could make Cherry Pie Filling from scratch but … c’mon. The point of this cherry tart Valentine dessert is that it’s easy and fast.

Try to add just a little to each tart at a time. I added a few cherries to each tart and then filled up the rest of the space with the gooey filling.

Don’t overfill the tarts ’cause they’ll get messy once they bubble up and cook.

Now you can either stick your tarts in the oven or …

You can tart up your tarts.

5. Now that you’re tarts have the look of something that took much longer than 20 minutes, stick them in the oven at 375° for 20 minutes.

Take ’em out … and eat ’em.

And there you have it. You’d normally have to cruise a bar at closing time to come across a tart this easy. Enjoy.

Easy, bite sized cherry tarts that you can unapologetically make with frozen pie shells and canned cherry pie filling.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: 12tarts

Calories: 160kcal

Author: Karen

Ingredients

1packagemini frozen tart shellsregular sized tart shells are fine too

1cancherry pie fillingcherry is great for Valentine's Day because it's red, but feel free to use any pie filling.

Instructions

Holding the tart, press gently inwards to form the top of your heart.

Pinch the tart directly below the indentation on the top to form your heart.

Fill each tart with a few cherries then top up with the pie filling glaze. Around 1 Tablespoon in total.

(Optional) Roll out some more tarts to act as tops for the tarts. Be as creative as possible! Basket weave, inlays, cutouts ... anything you do to the top of a regular pie, you can do on these mini ones.

Bake at 375 F for 20 minutes.

Nutrition Facts

Cherry Tarts

Amount Per Serving (2 tarts)

Calories 160

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

QUESTIONS/ANSWERS

Do you need to thaw the shells? The shells need to be thawed before baking but because they’re so small it only takes a few minutes.

Can you freeze them? These can be made ahead, cooked, then frozen. Just be careful when reheating them that you don’t cook them or your crust will be rock hard.

How many mini tart shells does one can of pie filling fill?1 standard can of pie filling is 2 cups which would fill 36 mini tarts at 1 tablespoon of filling per tart.

Those tarts are so freaking adorable! As someone who also doesn’t care too much for valentine’s day AND who lingers a little too long at the cheese aisle, i can appreciate the simplicity. I love how you stepped it up a notch with the lattice-work 🙂

So… A: I love your blog! B: I too lay awake at night and think of ways to make things into things C: I adore sweets, never bake, and wish I was one of those moms that do. But the oven has been broken since we killed it on Thanksgiving therefore I need a post on how to fix a vintage electric oven circa 1965… Kthanksbye!

I have a brand new (well, 13 month old) house with brand new (13 month old) fancy appliances but recently I went nutso on amazon and bought a toaster oven/real oven/convection oven. It was $79. Then an hour later I went to send the link to my son and damned if it hadn’t gone on sale for $49!

So I messaged amazon and said I wanted the $30 refunded and the woman said no! She said it wasn’t their policy to price match. But it was THEIR price! And less than 2 hours before! But she refused.

So I texted again and the guy said just to return it when it arrived and then reorder at the new price. But that would take DAYS.

So then I called amazon because I am nothing if not tenacious. And the guy I spoke with said they couldn’t refund the $30 because they don’t price match and that I could return it but what he’d do, because I’m SUCH a good customer (or they just wanted to shut me up) he’d refund the entire $79 price and when the oven arrived, I could just keep it. Free!

Anyway, my message is that amazon has a really nice toaster oven/regular oven/ convection oven (and it can even hold a 9×13 dish) for either $79 or $49 and it’s a bargain. I think it’s Oster. So now you can bake tiny pies!

So very cute!!! I am not a very good baker, but I think I can do these…what are your thoughts on eggwash over the crust to make it more shiny? Ooh! How about those giant sugar crystals on top? Too much?

Ought. So cute. I’ve never seen those pre-made tart shells before, but I’m going to keep an eye open for them now that I know such a thing exists. True confession time- even though I love to bake and can make just about any kind of cake or cookie, I’m just rubbish when it comes to pie crust. I’d never ever buy a cake mix, but always buy pre-made pie crusts.

Oh, honey! If I can do it, you can, Rose! Try this: 3:2:1 ratio flour:fat ( butter/lard mix is good):liquid. That works out to 1 cup of low gluten flour ( White Lily if you are in the Southeast US), 6 tablespoons of butter, 3 tablespoons of water for a single 9 inches. Pinch the flour and fat between your fingers… I find it handy to pretend I am the Headsquisher from the Kids in the Hall…so that there are irregular chunks that are about the size of peas. Add water, mix with abandon, chill, let the crust chill as well, roll it out on floury wax paper. Egg wash or not. Prebake or not. Voila! You are ready to make pies or hand pies or tarts or fried pies or quiche or whatever your heart desires. Benton’s Bacon grease is fabulous as part of the fat. Didn’t we learn from Karen that we can do anything someone else can do as long as we are sober? Plus, if you make piecrust in high heels it makes one feel really badass.

I know! LOL. I guess I shouldn’t say that about my own post, but I must say I was pretty impressed with myself for coming up with it! Today I bought some apple pie filling to make some quick, tiny apple pie tarts complete with tiny, little lattice tops. *Very* excited about them! Thanks. 🙂 ~ karen

What I love the most about this and I am a second generation pie maker/lover is that I don’t have to write down a complicated recipe that I will file away with my other long recipes and then have to read it each time I want to bake it. Terrific. I think I’ll try a beach tart. Thanks, nancy

Lora! The company is actually Tenderflake. Where are you? In Canada they should be readily available. The tart shells are in the frozen food section with the other frozen pie shells. However, the “mini” tart shells aren’t in *all* stores. If you can’t find the mini/appetizer sized shells just use the slightly larger sized ones. The ones you’d normally use if you were to make butter tarts. I can’t imagine this sort of thing isn’t available in the States. Just browse the frozen food section. Lemme know how you do! ~ karen

Cred! Thanks! That’s great. I’m so glad you made the tarts. They’re so much fun. If you ever do anything like this again send me a picture! I like to post them on the Art of Doing Stuff Facebook page! ~ karen

I made these with strawberry rhubarb filling for my dad (its his favorite) and he loved them. I dont think I let the tarts defrost enough though. I was having some crumbling problems with the first few but after they were warmer they seemed much much easier. You need to let them defrost longer than what the box says.

I definitely see why you wanted to rerun this one. It’s a winner for sure. Too darn cute. I’m always looking for things my wonder grands can make and this will be one of them. They are going to love it. I’m especially glad it was a tart/pie thingy because it reminded me I put a Marie Callander single serving apple pie in the microwave and forgot to eat it. It was going to be a midnight snack but since it’s 5 am it can be breakfast. Now, can you see why we love you so much? I would have left it in there for a day or so and it would have been garbage and you saved the day. Old bags with early senility that I am denying need all the help you can give. Thanks

LMAO! “You’d normally have to cruise a bar close to closing time to come across a tart this easy.” You need to open up a mini-tart shop and use that for your tagline. Awesome!

And, by the way, I disagree with the assertion that posting blogs twice is gauche. It’s just smart! And it’s not like you just hit publish again… you did it with an intro, so it’s all cool. There’s nothing wrong with directing people to a popular post. I would have missed these charming mini-tarts if you hadn’t. So, thanks!

Yesterday I made these pretty and delightfully easy tarts. I placed them on a plate that I purchased from Dollarama (after reading your dollar store table setting post of course). I washed up the dirty baking dishes after squirting (or rather lightly drizzling…there is a bit of an issue with the stopper, hmmmm)dish soap, from my newly crafted glass soap container, into the sink. Then, while washing the dishes, I looked out at my snow covered garden and attempted to figure out how I could possibly run a cord from the one outlet in my yard to a place where one of your amazing garden orbs would work…because it quite simply must. be. done.

All in all I would say I’ve been pretty inspired by your blog. It’s also been a couple of productive weeks. Very blogductive indeed! Never before have I actually done things I have seen on a blog. For that I say thank you! I hope to read many more funny, creative and just plain awesome posts from you.

P.s. I adore that you are a fellow Ontarian. I live just a quick jaunt away from you and I frequent your lovely downtown. It’s oh so nice to recognize products and stores that are used and mentioned in your posts!

So, there I was on Pinterest, looking for an easy dessert to help with the Vortex Blues. Thank you, Karen, for this easy recipe that looks so good, and better than eating the pie filling out of the can! You all are fibbing if you haven’t had at least one spoonful! 🙂 The sad thing about the potato chip aisle is that there are two now! They snuck them into the organic section too. So cruel!

These look yummy. Although in general I hate cherry pie filling. You mention that this pie filling isn’t too sweet, but don’t hint at which type it is. Will it forever remain labelless?? Maybe I’ll give this one a try. Have you ever tried sour cherries??they’re kind of hard to find but oh so yummy

Hi Sandi! I’ve never done it before but you might be able to make and freeze these ahead. The only issue really is the fact that you’d have to let your frozen tart shells thaw out so you can form them and then you’d have to refreeze them again (which you’re not supposed to do with any frozen stuff because of bacterial growth). As long as you thaw, shape and fill them quickly you should be fine. Good luck! Lemon ones sound great. ~ karen!

Okay, I love reading comments, and loved that these are from several previous years. I thought this looked familiar, and now I want to make them this year. I googled the heck out of all the words I could think of, and you are absolutely correct – they are VERY dufficult to find in the USofA! I finally located some disposible mini pans, and now just have to find the correct size round cookie cutter to cut the pastry into rounds to fill the tart pans, then dent and squeeze them into shapes. This is getting to be NOT EASY, south of your border, Karen! I think I may just use my mini muffin tin and make balls of my homemade french pastry and squish them with the tart squisher from Pampered Chef. Hearts might just be overrated down here?

I love the idea but the pie fillings are sickeningly too sweet for my taste and if I can’t make a neat looking dessert, I won’t make at all. Can’t help. I contracted the “It’s gotta be neat” sickness already in childhood age and apparently, there is no cure for it. Therefore, I usually make linzer cookies (similar to these: goo.gl/FsNPsb (it it doesn’t show up as a link, copy the string into the address field of a new browser window) except that I make them as hearts with little heart cutouts.

for people in the States – maybe you can get one big pie shell and punch it down a bit in the middle and then squeeze in the sides – maybe using oven mitts if it gets unwieldy – and create a great big heart – then just pour the whole can of cherries in 😉

I’m in Canada, home of all the cute little tarts, and thinking of doing this